Bush won't disclose parts of report

President rejects Saudi's request to release 27 pages

July 30, 2003|By Dan Mihalopoulos, Tribune staff reporter.

WASHINGTON — Despite a request Tuesday from Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, President Bush refused to declassify portions of a congressional report exploring possible links between the Saudi government and the Sept. 11 terrorists.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud bin al-Faisal said he flew here to ask Bush to declassify 27 pages of a congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks. But before meeting Faisal, Bush said releasing information from the report's top-secret passages "would help the enemy" in the war on terrorism.

The report alleged that widespread failures in communication between government agencies may have prevented officials from uncovering the Sept. 11 plot and apprehending some of the would-be hijackers. But the section regarding foreign support for the terrorists was largely censored.

If made public, the complete findings of a joint House-Senate intelligence committee inquiry "could jeopardize our national security," the president said, because they would reveal how the U.S. conducts its anti-terrorism efforts.

"We have an ongoing war against Al Qaeda and terrorists, and the declassification of that part of a 900-page document would reveal sources and methods that will make it harder for us to win the war on terror," Bush said.

Speaking outside the White House, Faisal said Bush's decision was disappointing but understandable.

`Would remove any doubts'

"We do not seek, nor do we need, to be shielded," Faisal said, adding that the release of the classified information "would remove any doubts about the kingdom's true role in the war against terrorism."

Since the heavily edited version of the report was released Thursday, some Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have called on Bush to disclose the entire 28-page section on possible foreign support for the hijackers.

The single page of that section that was not deleted states that the inquiry found CIA and FBI documents "suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers while they were in the United States."

But the joint committee said further investigation "could reveal legitimate and innocent explanations for these associations."

Anyone drawing links between the Saudi monarchy and the terrorists "must have a morbid imagination," Faisal said at the Saudi Embassy after his 40-minute White House meeting with Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser.

"My concern is that the good name of Saudi Arabia is not tarnished," Faisal said. "Everybody is having a field day and casting aspersions about Saudi Arabia."

Relations between Washington and Riyadh have been strained since it was discovered that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

Faisal said Saudi Arabia is a staunch ally in Bush's war on terror and said the Saudi government has made more than 500 arrests of suspected terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001. Saudi officials say more than 150 of those arrests have come since May, when a terrorist attack in Riyadh killed 34 people, including eight Americans.

"Some of the information that we have brought has saved lives in the United States," Faisal said. "As the president said, this calls for appreciation."

Without mentioning Saudi Arabia specifically, Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) told Fox News on Sunday that a foreign country "provided logistical assistance to at least two of the hijackers."

"High officials in this government, who I assume were not just rogue officials acting on their own, made substantial contributions to the support and well-being of two of these terrorists and facilitated their ability to plan, practice and then execute the tragedy of Sept. 11," said Graham, who is running for president.

Edited to `protect the Saudis'

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CBS's "Face the Nation" that the report was edited to "protect the Saudis."

Another Republican, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, has said that 95 percent of the classified passage could be made public without endangering national security.

An FBI official said Tuesday that most of the information in the report's section on foreign support for terrorists was classified at the request of the White House, not intelligence agencies.

Former CIA agent Robert Baer said the flap presents a no-win situation for the Bush administration. "We have a dependency on cheap oil from Saudi Arabia, and that's why we look the other way," Baer said.

For all the fuss over the classified section, there also were damaging assessments of Saudi Arabia that were not censored. The report quoted unidentified U.S. government officials who complained that Saudi Arabia's government did not cooperate with terrorism investigations.

"A high-level U.S. government officer cited greater Saudi cooperation when asked how the Sept. 11 attacks might have been prevented," according to the report.

The report also revealed that Omar Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi man who had a "somewhat suspicious meeting with two of the hijackers," could have been a Saudi intelligence agent and "had access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia."

Rice asked Faisal to allow U.S. officials to interview Al-Bayoumi, and Faisal said that request would be granted. Al-Bayoumi is in Saudi Arabia.

"He is at large, because there was no allegation" against him, Faisal said.

Saudi officials said Faisal requested the meeting with Bush on Friday, and Faisal said he flew to Washington "to clear the name of Saudi Arabia." He passed along a letter from Crown Prince Abdullah.

"Anybody who commits a crime must have a motive," Faisal said. "What is the motive of Saudi Arabia?"